Back of photo reads:

Marysville Opera House and Will. Schenk

Marysville, Montana

1896

Notes:

[1] “Will. Schenk” was William Schenk, George Schenk‘s brother.  Sadly, William died of pneumonia at the young age of 28 on August 20, 1900.

[2] The sign above the “Opera House” sign reads “A.O.U.W. Hall”.  I learned that A.O.U.W. is an acronym for Ancient Order of United Workmen, which is a fraternal organization that provided social and financial support after the Civil War.  Its founder, John Jordan Upchurch, was also a freemason.  For more information on the A.O.U.W., click here.

[3] There are two posters on the Opera House building and one on the building to the right referring to “Murray & Mack”.  They were a comedy team billed as the “Irish Comedians” and were on the vaudevillian circuit for 21 years.  By 1914, the team broke up and Charlie Murray joined Biograph Studios.  Two years later, he joined Keystone Pictures Studios where he appeared in several films with Charlie Chaplin.

I performed a search for possible newspaper ads for this performance of “Finnigan’s Ball” at the Marysville Opera House on Thursday, October 26, 1896 (you can barely make out that date on the poster on the far left side of the building) but was unable to locate anything.  I did, however, locate an ad from The Helena Independent dated October 28, 1899, for a performance of the same comedy act for that evening.  It seems likely that the comedy troupe was traveling in the area and had just performed in Marysville two nights earlier on Thursday, October 26th.  Perhaps the date on the back of the photo is incorrect?  I feel fairly certain that in many instances Mary would obtain a photo many years after an event and just make a good guess at a date.